


a complicated woman

by The Curator of The Sands (GrimRevolution)



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Leverage Fusion, Cat Grant is tired, Child Death, Con Artists, Found Family, Gen, Mentions of Cancer, let her rest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 21:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14819177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrimRevolution/pseuds/The%20Curator%20of%20The%20Sands
Summary: Bringing together a group of women already angry at the world was not the greatest decision Maxwell Lord ever made.Not for himself, at least.





	a complicated woman

Cat Grant could have been a powerful woman.

She could have been a queen, a general, a president.

She could have made the world sit up at the sound of her voice.

 _Could have_.

(“‘Could have’,” She would have said in another time on another world in another universe, “are just weak words used by people who would rather rot in the dreams of their past than look forward to the possibilities in their future.”)

Cat Grant decided long ago to never live her life by what could have happened.

What could have happened if she had followed her mother into editing.

What could have happened if she had never slept with that man with no face and no name.

What could have happened if her son hadn’t been diagnosed with cancer.

What could have happened if the insurance company had covered his treatment.

(Because she had _tried_.

She had tried so hard and for so long and gave up her dreams for CatCo but she would do it again and again and _again_ because there was nothing in the world that was more important than Carter Grant.

But he died.

He _died_.)

Bank account dry and with nothing left to lose, Cat Grant sat at an empty bar in a hotel and drank away the rest of her cash. Her blonde hair was still carefully cut, white blouse tucked into her grey trousers, black shoes polished, but her eyes focused on the world around her like a tired Goddess that had been driven from her home by prayers she could not answer.

Cars passed by the windows in a parade of careful noise, the shuttle to the airport a rumble on the edge of her consciousness. Her glass was cold against her hand and, with a roll of her eyes, she lifted it to her lips.

 “Cat Grant?”

The whiskey was placed down on the bar like verbal punctuation and Cat brushed her hair away from her face, sighed with the entirety of her being, and turned to the man who had invited himself onto the barstool next to her.

He was young; dark hair, blue eyes, a five-o’clock shadow used artistically to make his jaw and chin stand out. A grey suit fit his figure well, probably personally tailored with the money that clung to him in form of a brand new wristwatch, silver cufflinks, and a silk tie.

Cat finished her drink motioned for a refill.

“You _are_ Cat Grant, right? Journalist for the Daily Planet—”

 _Ex_ , she wanted to correct him but something that felt like brimstone and ice in the pit of her stomach stopped her.

“—war correspondent? Won an award for revealing massive corruption in the military operations in Iraq?”

“Sometimes,” Cat muttered, and then threw back the whiskey as if she hoped it would make him disappear. The liquid was burning and golden as it slid down her throat but, when she opened her eyes, the kid was still there. “Who’re you?”

He scrambled, awkward, clumsy, looking through the bag at his side and pulling out a leather portfolio. “I’m Maxwell Lord.” His business card was offered.

She ignored it.

He placed it between them like an unwanted peace treaty. “I know about what you did and how you tried to save your son—”

Cat slammed her glass on the counter instead of punching him in the face. So that was a win. “You’re five seconds away from getting punched in the face,” she told him, voice with a slight gurgle in the back of her throat.

(Almost as if she had been screaming through a window, watching a defibrillator fail again and again and again and _again._ )

 “Sorry!” Lord lifted his hands as if to show he was unarmed. “I just wanted to offer you a job.”

Cat barked out a single, humourless laugh bared all her teeth in what could have been a smile. “And what is it you need me to do?” She rested her head on her hand, elbow on the bar, watching Lord with cold amusement. “Write a puff piece about you? Become your publicist? Dig up some cheap dirt like Fox News?”

“No, no,” Lord said, “nothing like that.”

“Uh huh.” White collared _politics_ where men measured themselves against each other about who had the most money and power and willingness to fuck over the people beneath them.

There wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to bleach that thought out of her mind.

“So, what _do_ you want with an ex-journalist, huh?” Cat wondered if she could ask the bartender for the whole bottle of whiskey instead of just one glass at a time.

Lord leaned forward until he was almost in her space and Cat fought the urge to lean away. Let him smell the alcohol on her if that’s what he wanted. What did she have to lose?

His face was cold when she looked up at him, eyes sharp, voice carefully quiet in a way it hadn’t been when he stumbled through his introduction.

Cat felt something click inside of her. An old curiosity that had served her well when she had a pen and notepad in hand.

“I need your help stealing something.”

Cat scoffed. “Then you should find someone else to help you.”

“No, no, see—Repli-Tech. _They_ stole it first. Five years my scientists have worked on this project and then the drives are stripped and two weeks later _they_ announce a project that’s pretty much the same? Come _on_.” He fumbled with something in his hands—a pen—and watched her with wide, puppy eyes. “I might be young, but I’m not _stupid_ , Miss Grant.”

Rubbing a hand over her face, Cat motioned for the bartender and requested a glass of water. “We should probably move away from the counter,” she  muttered.

Lord slid off his stool and bounced in place.

Cat wondered what the hell she had gotten herself into this time.

oOo

“So, let me get this straight,” Cat took the black folder from Lord, a glass of water next to her elbow. They had moved to a corner table where they wouldn’t be overheard instead of staying at the bar itself where the bartender could have kept an ear open. “You want me to lead a group of criminals to expose Repli-Tech Industries _and_ take back the genetic engineering research they stole from you?”

Lord nodded, papers strewn out in front of him. His ‘proof’.

The alcohol had created a warm buzz around her thoughts and Cat took a sip of her water. “Why don’t you call the police?”

“And have them take _years_ to figure it out?” Lord shook his head. “No, no,” he leaned forward. “Look, I just got Lord Tech. My father died four months ago and now I’m the CEO and if this gets out? The board is gonna go _insane_.”

Cat hummed tilted back in her seat, eyebrow raised and face carefully clear of emotions.

“Look, look,” Lord moved some things around and placed a white school folder in front of her, “the names of who you’ll be working with, some of them you’ve written about.”

The first paper had a Polaroid type of photo of a young woman, brown hair pulled back into a high ponytail, dark sunglasses sitting high on her nose, laptop bag hanging from one shoulder. Lena Sullivan, known online as _The Morrigan_. Hacker. She had gotten into the White House cameras and streamed a meeting between the president and the country’s military leaders live on Twitch.

It had been taken down pretty quickly, but Morrigan had vanished back into the depths of the dark web.

Second paper had a picture of a blonde who was looking at the camera. It was clearly a photograph taken from quite a distance, but Kiera Eszes either was looking at the right place in the right time or knew that someone was there. From the woman’s reputation of conning people, Cat wouldn’t bet against her. She probably had let one last photograph be taken before she disappeared with a new identity to continue her work.

“Yeah, I’ve heard of them.” Cat frowned. They had been involved in her work sometime or another. The Morrigan with releasing information onto the internet and Kiera had run into her at some high profile party hanging off an ambassador’s arm. She had vanished sometime during the night, taking off with thousands of dollars worth of jewellery and art.

Last was—“Lucy?” Brown hair cut to shoulder length, hazel eyes, and a smile that seemed to know too much. She was an art thief, known for stealing from old white men more than museums.

No first name, no last name. Just Lucy.

“ _Lucy_? You have _Lucy_?”

Lord frowned. “Yes, why? Is there someone better?”

Better than _Lucy_? No.

No, there was no one better than any of them.

Morrigan, wanted in seven countries for leaking company and government secrets. Probably from the comfort of their (possibly her, going by the picture) own home.

Kiera Eszes, who managed to weasel her way onto the board of directors of Ace Chemicals and got the CEO to admit, on camera, that he didn’t care about the rivers around the Metropolis factory, single handily ruining him and his cohorts.

And Lucy, an art thief who stayed locked in an Egyptian sarcophagus for thirteen hours to steal a painting from an American billionaire.

“No, but Lucy’s _insane_.”

They said there was no honour among thieves, but Lord had managed to still pick out not only the best but the ones who would probably be just fine with ruining a corrupt corporation.

At least he’d done his homework. There might be hope for him yet.

Lord sighed, almost in relief. “Which is why I need you,” his eyes were burning with something and Cat wasn’t sober enough to guess what it was. Damn whiskey. “You’re an honest woman—you could keep them in line.”

Keep _them_ in line? Cat rolled her eyes. “No,” she said, pushing the folder away. “No that’s... you’re asking three of the world’s biggest criminals to steal something and you expect _me_ to keep an eye on them?” Scoffing, she turned away from the kid and his crazy ideas. “Not going to happen. I’m not a thief.”

“Thieves I got,” Lord folded his hands over the paper. “I just need someone to _watch_ them.”

Cat Grant snorted and finished off her glass of water before moving to stand up. “I’m not a baby sitter either. If they can’t work together without someone looking over their shoulders, I guess you’re just tough outta luck, kid.”

“Hey, _hey_ , wait Miss Grant,” Lord scrambled, to get her attention before she fully left her seat.

With a grunt, Cat settled back down and leaned back, crossing one leg over the other and raising her eyebrows up to her forehead.

 “They’ll work together for three hundred thousand dollars,” he said. “ _Each._ And you’ll be getting double that.”

_What would you do for a Klondike bar?_

 Cat rubbed one hand down her face and wondered, not for the first time, why her?

Why here?

Why _this_?

And why was she actually considering it?

“And that’s just the salary—there is a bonus.”

Cat’s eyes turned back to Lord and found him watching her like an earnest little boy. His suit looked strangely large on him after they had sat down. Just a rich little daddy’s boy trying to fix a problem with money.

“Repli-Tech is the company that created the medication that would have helped your son,” Lord was watching her and Cat knew he saw how she froze, how her gaze had sharpened. “They’re the ones that put a price tag on _life_.”

Her heart thudded heavily in her chest and Cat looked down at the folders and papers strewn out on the table and knew that he got her. That manipulative _little_ —

“Miss Grant, how much do you want to screw over the company that let your son die?”

A siren song vibrated through the whiskey and her hatred.

And Cat Grant agreed.

oOo

Three days later, Cat pulled up to a wide, two story brick office building with covered windows and a propped open door. She double checked the address (and time) Lord had scribbled on a torn bit of paper, making sure it matched the one she had plugged into her GPS, before she pulled up to the double glass doors. The parking lot was empty except for a midnight blue Maserati  that looked as if it had been just bought—or stolen—from a dealership, a red and black Buggati Chiron, and a silver Cadillac XTS.

It was like driving into a car show rather than a business place and Cat’s bigger, bulkier Nissan felt like someone had dumped chilli powder instead of cinnamon into a cookie mix. It parked just fine between the Maserati and Buggati anyway.

She was thirty minutes early and still managed to be late. Grabbing her phone and the black folder Lord had given her, Cat shoved her purse under the passenger seat (not that it would stop anyone she would be ‘working’ with) and exited her car. There was no movement beyond the windows, no sign from beyond the door.

Cat squared her shoulders and walked inside.

The walls were blank—not that she was really expecting anything; it was a rented office—a secretary desk sitting alone and abandoned in the corner. Everything was cold, empty, hospital white and she passed through the makeshift lobby to the thin hallway leading further into the building.

Someone had closed the blinds to every window and, with no lights on, the entire place seemed out of place like a 3D movie that wasn’t lined up correctly so everything came out with a blue and red outline.

“Don’t _touch_ that,” someone hissed and Cat turned towards one of the conference rooms. It was the only one with the door open, all the blinds still closed on the windows, and walked into a Frankenstein computer project.

Wires hung from the ceiling—Ethernet, HDMI, and a couple of power cords—and had been bundled together with zip ties to stay out of the way. One half of the conference table had been taken over by a keyboard, a mouse, and a tower that was humming softly. Matrixes littered the empty space, RAM cards between them, wires and USBs and what could have been a phone gutted for parts.

Standing on a chair, black hair tied back in a high pony tail, bangs kept out of her eyes by a black and white checker wrap, was an average heighted woman who Cat guessed was Lena Sullivan. She was trying to reach up into the ceiling and cursed when dust fell down across her face.

Sitting on the table next to her, keeping one foot on the seat of the chair so woman and furniture wouldn’t top over, was Lucy. Her hair was still short, bobbing around at her shoulders, and a pair of dark aviator sunglasses sat on her head like a crown. She was smiling in a way that begged for trouble, and kept flexing her legs as if tempted to push to see what would happen.

It was only from Lucy’s gaze flickering from Lena to the corner that Cat saw the last woman.

And then she wondered how she could have missed the red New York Yankees cap, the matching Nikes, the white Levi’s t-shirt, the ripped up blue jeans.

And the four containers of what looked like Chinese food.

Kiera Eszes glanced up from her noodles, chopsticks in hand, and smiled beneath the brim of her baseball cap. She was sitting on the floor; legs stretched out in front of her, and ignored the angry muttering coming from the other side of the room.

“Got it!” Lena crowed, Irish twang to the vowels, wrenching a wire that did who knew what through the opening in the ceiling and bounded down from the chair, plugging this and that into her desktop before wiggling the mouse. The monitors across from her came to life, some windows already open and working before she minimized them.

Lucy sat in one of the chairs and spun around, twirling slowly until she stopped, looking at Kiera. “Are you willing to share any of that?”

Slurping up the noodles in her mouth, Kiera took the other containers and pulled them closer. She never stopped watching Lucy out of the corner of her eye as she ate.

Cat sat down in one of the chairs and placed her phone and folder on the table, slid her car keys in her bra, and ignored Lucy’s knowing smile. “I’m Cat Grant,” she said, introducing herself because there was nothing else she really could do.

“Lucy.”

“You have a last name, Lucy?” Lena spoke up, her eyes focused primarily on the monitors as her fingers flew across the keyboard. The question was spoken half heartedly. More out of curiosity than anything else. All of them had probably crossed paths before this, just as Cat had passed theirs.

“Nah,” the thief waved one hand. “Just Lucy.”

Lena hummed and jerked as a bag of food was placed beside her, Kiera joining them from her place on the floor.

“I am called Kiera,” the blonde woman said—with an accent that Cat didn’t recognize—as if her name was an address with negativity smeared across it like blood. ‘I am called Kiera’ or, alternatively, ‘I am called Thief’, ‘I am called Bitch’, or ‘I am called The Sound of Alarms When the Night is Quiet’.

It was as if she knew what Kiera was supposed to mean and what people perceive her as.

It made Cat wonder what Kiera called herself.

“Lena, Lena Sullivan,” the last name sounded chopped up and half there, as if she stumbled upon saying it.

Cat wouldn’t doubt it was fake.

That all their names were fake.

It wasn’t so hard to remember that every person in that room—minus herself—was wanted in at least two countries.

“Well, then,” Cat said, opening the folder. “It’s time we got started.”

oOo

“Is this really necessary?” Lena muttered, her hair blowing wildly in her face as Lucy strapped her into a harness. Her eyes were focused on the horizon instead of the some forty story drop a few feet from her toes.

 _“We need to find out what security measures Repli-Tech has. If you can steal the information tonight we can all go our separate ways and get paid tomorrow without anyone the wiser.”_ Cat’s voice came over the small ear buds Lena had handed out to everyone before they had left the office building.

Lucy tugged roughly on the harness and Lena grunted. “You know,” she said, voice choked, “next time we need two people to be flung off the side of a building, I’ll volunteer you.”

“Relax,” making sure her own harness was secure, Lucy pulled Lena closer to the edge, “I’ve done this a hundred times—I won’t let you fall.”

There was honesty there, something bright and strange in the eyes of the thief before she grabbed Lena’s hand and _jumped_. The hacker screamed all the way down—a wind muffled _‘OH MY GOD’_ that made the others wince and be grateful for the automatic volume adjustment from their comms. It wasn’t a free fall, but controlled by the rope and the harness.

Lena grabbed for her tether and hung on as it slid through her leather gloves. At about ten stories from the top, she slowed and stopped in front of a dark window. Beside her, Lucy was already at work, peering through the glass and frowning. “No vibration detectors,” she said.

 _“Use the binary anyway,”_ Cat said. _“They could have hidden the detectors behind something.”_

Humming, Lucy drew a circle with the blue liquid and ignored Lena’s small panicked breaths beside her.

 _“Lena, inhale,”_ Kiera spoke, her voice soft. There was a strange cadence to her words, a low purring kind of feeling that eased the tension in everyone’s shoulders. She was on the other side of the city, doing her own type of scouting. Apparently, Rex Rogan and his wife had a date. Nobody wanted to know how the blonde managed to get a table at the incredibly expensive restaurant where they were dining. _“Exhale. Good.”_

“I hate heights,” Lena muttered as Lucy pulled the glass out. “Hate _flying_.”

The thief let the hacker go first, guiding her slowly into the office before undoing the ropes. “I’ll come back for you,” she told the equipment and turned around, motioning for Lena to follow her through the door.

Back in the office building, Cat watched the monitors, tracking their progress through 3D blueprints before turning her attention to Kiera. The blonde’s mic had been muted until she had decided to speak to Lena, but Cat had her audio flowing through the central hub instead of to everyone. She had managed to place a bug under the table Rogan was at, but she wasn’t anywhere near the man or his wife.

Something that sounded like water hitting a hot stove hissed over the speakers and Cat leaned back, muting herself for Lena and Lucy.

“Is that... a _grill_?”

Kiera hummed and Cat started recognizing the other sounds that were slowly drifting over the audio. A knife against a cutting board, muffled shouting, doors opening and closing.

“Are you _cooking_?”

 _“Do not sound so shocked,”_ Kiera said, amused, with that foreign tilt Cat still couldn’t place wrapped around her words. _“My job calls for many skills.”_ She slapped something metal, calling for runners, and then went back to gently humming.

Cat leaned back in her seat, checked on the other two women (they were currently breaking past a silent alarm on the stairwell. Child’s play for the two of them) before turning back to Kiera. “Do you like cooking?”

There was a moment of silence, filled by the crackle of background noise filtering through the speakers.

 _“Better than baking,”_ There was humour there, a history of something. _“I find it soothing.”_

“You?” Cat wondered when the curiosity had bloomed in her chest for the first time in years; desperate desire to finish a puzzle that hadn’t been there since the hospital and Carter and Perry White telling her to get out of his office until she got her life back together. “Or Kiera?”

A knife hit a cutting board and the sound made Cat wince.

Stillness settled across the comms, like the black void that settled between two distant stars.

 _“I do not know,”_ Kiera said.

She didn’t say anything for the rest of the night.

oOo

Lucy and Lena arrived only a few minutes after Kiera returned, breathless and windswept, their eyes bright with the thrill of the chase but with something else in their stance that made Cat frown over her stuffed shells.

“What is it?”

Sliding into the seat in front of the computer, Lena plugged the external drive in and motioned with a wild waving hand. “Good news, we got into the server room.”

Lucy passed by Kiera on the way to her own seat, paused, and looked at the blonde woman who was still dressed in a dark blue chef jacket and grey pants. Kiera lifted her eyebrows in a ‘ _what’_ motion and then nodded to the flat, rectangular take out containers stacked in the middle of the table.

“Bad news?”

“There’s another server room for the laboratory projects,” Lena typed a few words and the 3D blueprint twisted and zoomed down to a separate level. “Which we can’t get into without a badge because it’s sealed from the outside with security measures that makes the Pentagon look like a bakery.”

Opening one of the containers, Lucy’s confused frown turned into a bright smile. “This is mine,” she told Kiera, taking the chicken marsala and a package of plastic silverware.

“So we need to find a way to clone a badge,” Cat crossed her arms over her chest.

Lena shook her head and half jumped as Lucy placed food in front of her. She shot the thief a look before turning back to Cat. “It’s not that easy—the names on the badges are monitored so if someone shows up at the lab and at the cafeteria the building will go into lock down.” She opened the box and frowned at the salmon. “What—”

“Eat,” Lucy managed, mouth already full of chicken. She swallowed and turned to the grifter. “Is this from that restaurant?”

“Yes,” Kiera said before Cat could open her mouth. “The only way to get into the labs would be to clone the badge of someone inside.”

Lena rubbed a hand over her forehead. “Well, _yes_ —”

Cat straightened and was looking at Kiera. “What about the lab server room? Who has access to it?”

“Rogan,” the hacker pulled up the list, “the head scientist who’s out of the country, and the head of security.”

“And who has access to the lab?”

Shrugging, Lena pulled up another list. One that was considerably longer than the other. “All of the scientists.”

“So no one would notice another name being added?”

Lena shook her head.

“Alright,” Cat said, “we’ll start with that. What did you find out about Rogan, Kiera?”

“He was invited to a gala being hosted by the governor.” Nimble fingers started undoing the buttons on the Chef coat, though Kiera’s gaze was on the monitors. “It will be taking place in the Art Museum in four days. CEOs, officials; they will be there.”

Cat hummed under her breath and leaned back in her seat. “And that’s how we’ll get close to him. Good work.”

The other three women grinned at her over their food.

oOo

Going shopping for a gala with world class criminals was an experience Cat never knew she would have but at midnight, Lucy, Kiera, and Lena were showing her how to break into Bergdorf Goodman, using the back door and shutting down the security system.

The lights were still on (ironically, to prevent thievery), but the store itself was a good seven floors. With the cameras off and, if they cleaned up after themselves, no one would know they were even there.

 “And we couldn’t just buy what we need because...?” Cat paused by a rack of small handbags going for a good one thousand dollars each and whistled low under her breath.

“Because the fashion industry makes its money off convincing women that they need this or that for them to belong in the world,” Lucy said as Kiera pulled Lena onto the escalator that went up through the building. “Besides, we’d rather keep the money we get from the job, not spend it all here.”

Cat snorted. “You’d rather not spend it at all.”

Lucy grinned and spun past Cat, placing a black and gold handbag in her hands before following the other women up the escalator.

Cat placed the bag down on the racks.

Up and up they went, reaching the fourth floor with conversation and laughter swirling around them.

 “I do not believe I have ever bought any of the clothes I wore during my heists,” Kiera mused guiding Lucy and Lena towards the gowns. “It always seemed so ludicrous.”

“Not to mention,” Lucy passed by a rack, paused for a moment, and then kept walking, “good practice.”

Kiera grinned, “for you maybe.” She waved her hand around them, “I use a different style.”

“I just get it sent to my door,” Lena muttered. “Make a few adjustments to the orders, change the addresses. Easy.”

“Clever,” Kiera nodded, stopping at one of the little tailor stations and sliding behind the counter.

“So,” Lucy said, “the clothes maketh the man.”

Cat stopped by them, watching in bemusement as Lena pulled out her small laptop, typing and then turning it around.

“Doctor Veronica Silva, PhD. in genetic engineering.”

“A bit nerdy,” Lucy leaned over the counter to look at the screen. “Look at that! You’re published in five medical journals.”

Kiera smiled softly and tilted the screen back, reading over the information before looking over the dresses around her. “Intelligent,” she tapped her chin, “possibly conservative in dress.”

“Not too conservative,” Cat said. “We want you to be noticed.”

The smile on Kiera’s face said many things at once. ‘I’m always noticed’ at the forefront and ‘But I don’t always want to be’ in the background and ‘I could hide if I tried’ mixed in with the others.

Cat remembered not noticing her in the conference room a day ago when all this started.

How Kiera was on the floor and yet out of sight until she had followed Lucy’s gaze.

How there was something about the blonde woman’s face that made Cat go ‘ _beautiful’_ but was left unable to describe her features beyond ‘blonde and blue eyes’.

How the grifter seemed to move between people with a gentle care as if paying attention to every movement—from the beat of her heart to the twitch of her toes.

By the time Cat was finished organizing her thoughts, the other three women were moving through the racks, calling out to each other about sizes and ‘I haven’t left my house in months and that’s still the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen’ and ‘how could this possibly be in style?’.

Lucy found a hat with massive feathers sticking out of it and stood on the tailor platform, begging for Lena to turn the store music on as Kara vanished into the dressing rooms behind her.

Six hundred _thousand_ dollars.

To babysit three children.

Cat sat down in one of the waiting chairs and knew that there was wine hidden somewhere in the store. She’d probably need it by the time the night was over.

Possibly in the next half hour.

Lena plopped down next to her, muttering about thieves and music before the speakers above them crackled to life, turned to some station playing Matchbox Twenty.

“I am not wearing this!” Kiera called, flinging the dressing door open and tossing a blue dress that must have been around two thousand dollars out onto the floor.

Lucy jumped down from her platform, scooped up the dress, snorted, and held it out for the other women to see. It had a black rose pattern—too big to look like anything really good—and reminded Cat of something her stuck-in-the-80’s mother would wear.

“Oh _God_ ,” Lena choked and Cat glanced over at the hacker, finding the brunette with a hand over her mouth to smother her laughter.

Lucy made the dress dance with the music for a moment and then skipped off to hang it back up.

“Is this what dignified, Queens of the criminal world do in their free time?” Cat found herself smiling softly and tried to squash it. They were thieves. _Dangerous_. “Insult designer clothes and trash luxury stores?”

“No,” Lucy said, sitting on the armrest of Cat’s chair. She had found the bottle of wine and waved glasses in their faces. “Sometimes we steal paintings.”

Kiera walked out of the dressing room all swaying hips and fluttering eyelashes. She had found a giant brown fur _something_ somewhere and held it over her dress. With a deep, wrenching gasp, she dropped the coat, revealing a white dress with a giant blue bow at the waist and a frilled skirt.

“Grandma,” she called—unknown accent changing into flawless Russian—as she lifted an invisible cigarette to her lips. “It’s me; _Anastasia_.”

Lena and Lucy burst into laughter.

Cat sighed, taking the wine and the glasses to give herself a generous portion. She watched as Kiera spun around, looked over her shoulder, and winked.

It was going to be a long night.

oOo

Kiera sashayed, swayed, and danced through dress after dress. Some she stood in, tugging at the fabric and making an ‘I will never wear this beyond this moment’ face and some were just Lucy having fun and the grifter happily playing along.

Eventually they settled on an asymmetrical black dress with a single off shoulder sleeve that left Kiera’s collar and upper chest bare. It was the classiest out of the lot and—when Cat snuck a look at the tag—also one of the more expensive.

Second floor was shoes and the dress had taken over an hour but shoes.

 _Shoes_.

Lucy had three boxes and was trying on another pair before Cat fully processed what was going on. Lena was the one sitting out, her attention on the boutique part of the floor and she vanished for a bit, coming back occasionally with her own pile of stuff that was placed besides Kiera’s dress.

More and more clothing piled up next to Cat. Blouses and pants, jeans and bras, swimsuits and sportswear. At any given moment, at least one of the three women vanished off to someplace else.

Cat sat there, unable to stop it—if she even wanted to—and sipped her wine.

It took Kiera an hour before she placed four boxes next to the clothes and smiled. “Done,” she announced, which seemed to signal the end of the second floor stealing spree.

“Jewellery?” Lucy popped up, gathering as much of the clothing as she could in her arms.

“Makeup first, I think,” Kiera tapped her bottom lip. “Then jewellery.”

Lucy skipped forward without them until Lena scrambled after her with some bags so they weren’t dropping clothing and shoes wherever they went.

Kiera stayed behind with Cat. “It would not be shameful if you were to take something.” The grifter watched her, blue eyes bright and smile knowing.

“I’m not a thief,” Cat snapped back at her.

“No,” Kiera said and there was something in her eyes. Something burning and sad and far, far away. “No you are not.”

The makeup was with the fragrances and the group of women were torn between either side.

“Makeup” Kiera decided before anyone else could speak up. “I would rather put off clogging my nose with perfume for a while longer.”

Lucy winced. “Yeah, I can’t smell the difference after a while either.”

“Smell cards?” Lena stood up straighter. “They probably have some behind the counter.”

“On it.”

Cat pointedly ignored Lucy boosting herself over the glass and watched Kiera go through boxes, opening them with deft fingers, cracking apart the case, and replacing it all the way she found it.  The grifter flipped through natural shades, some of the more vibrant variations, and then focused on some of the more subtle options.

“Eye shadow,” Kiera picked up a smaller, rectangular black box and tossed it to Cat. “Mascara and eyeliner.”

Dumping all the grifter tossed her into the bags Lena had brought down from the other floors; Cat followed Kiera as she went through foundations, concealer, and powders.

Lucy and Lena joined them with small little white boxes as they were popping open lipstick tubes. Unable to decide between three, Kiera took them all and grimaced when the scent cards were offered.

“Did any of them stand out to you?” she looked almost pained and Lucy clucked her tongue and dug through the box, holding out three.

“These two are sweet and flowery without being overwhelming and this one is...” Lucy trailed off.

“It smells like wet dog,” Lena said, her voice flat. “Like gross, wet dog.”

Kiera raised an eyebrow, scratched her nail across the first one, grimaced and handed it off the Cat. The second one made her frown thoughtfully. “Which one is this?”

“I’ll get it,” Lucy said, jumping back over the counter and pulling a set of lock picks from her pocket.

Lena waved Wet Dog Extract in front of them and Kiera rolled her eyes before taking the card. She took one sniff and coughed, plugging her nose and handing it over to Cat who, after a moment, took a hesitant whiff.

It did, indeed, smell like wet dog.

“Why?” Kiera choked out. “That is _horrible_.”

“I want it,” Cat said without thinking. “It’s so bad I want it.”

Lena’s smile formed slowly, her eyes shining. “Lucy!” She called back to the thief, “get that really bad one too!”

“Are you _serious_? That stuff smells like shit!”

“Grab it anyway!”

Lucy’s groan could be heard across the store but she returned with two boxes. “You’re all horrible people,” she drawled, shoving both into a new bag. “Horrible, _horrible_ people. How dare you make me touch this monstrosity—”

“You big baby,” Kiera said fondly and turned them all, heading over to the brightly lit jewellery section. “Do not worry—we will save you from the wet dogs.”

Cat snorted and Lucy stuck her tongue out back at her before her attention was grabbed by a tower of glittering watches. She cooed at them like a bird as Kiera headed over to the necklaces first.

Lena, looking like a child in the middle of Costco whose parents were taking hours to fill up their cart, subtly ducked away over to the sunglasses. Cat watched her out of the corner of her eye as she tried on various pairs from big bug eyed messes to rectangular frames that had her walking around pretending to be a robot.

Dangerous people, the file said.

Kiera was partially leaning over the counter, pointing at something and murmuring to Lucy who was nodding excitedly and said something back, her palms flat against the glass.

 _Dangerous_.

Kiera looked over her shoulder back at Cat, caught her eye, and smiled.

oOo

At five in the morning, Cat stood by her Nissan Rogue as Kiera loaded the ten or so bags into the back. The sun hadn’t even begun to breach the edges of the horizon and the sky was still scattered with stars. Most of the city was dark with just the occasional street lamp here and there creating a soft Halloween backdrop.

The world was asleep and the women were hushed, but giggling. Lena and Lucy were resetting the alarms behind them as Kiera loaded the last of their spree and closed the trunk with a soft _thump_.

“Okay, okay,” Lena said, her voice hushed, “ _got it_ , let’s go.”

Lucy was in the passenger seat before anyone else could claim the spot and Kiera just rolled her eyes, taking the seat behind her. Cat started the car as Lena was still climbing in and once the hacker closed the door, they were off, peeling down the street with the radio flickering to life.

Rolling her window down, Kiera rested her arms on the door, placed her chin on top, and closed her eyes. The wind whipped strands of her hair back and forth like a puppeteer.

“I haven’t had fun like that in a while,” Lena said, her voice almost drowned out by music and wind. She was looking out her own window, lights dancing across her face.

Lucy nodded. “We should do it again sometime.”

“How about you wait until I’m out of earshot before saying that,” Cat said, rubbing her forehead and slowing down for a red light.

“Why?” Lucy turned to her, grinning. “You’re _invited_.”

Cat groaned.

oOo

Lucy glanced back in the rear-view mirror of her Cadillac to look over Kiera.

The blonde woman was partially sprawled across brown leather, elbow resting on the edge of the window, chin on partially curled fingers. Her hair had been spun and woven through gold wire tipped with small diamonds that looked like stars. A black choker sat low on her throat, leather, with a small, gold triangle hanging just above where the collarbones connected.

Passing streetlights made the gold bracelets—a mix of artful things like a band shaped like a nail, leather with gold beads and black stones, and one thin chain with a leaf charm—glitter playfully.

“Nervous?” The thief turned her attention back to the road.

“I do not get nervous. Not anymore,” Kiera’s voice was soft.

Lucy looked back again and saw that the other woman’s blue eyes had gentled, her pink, painted lips turning up in a barely-there smile. Light crossed over her features and there was something off about the shape of her face, the fae-ness of her angles and curves.

But then it was gone. Nothing more than a trick of the light.

“You clean up nicely,” Lucy said, turning down one of the streets their stolen invitation told her to take.

Kiera smoothed one hand down her dress, over her crossed legs. “So do you,” she said, humour bleeding along the edges of her words.

Lucy rolled her eyes under the black and white plaid newsboy hat, light grey suspenders, and dark silver button up shirt. “Well,” she drawled, “had to look the part, didn’t I?”

“Very cute,” Kiera hummed, nodding to herself.

“Flirt.”

Cat’s sigh rolled through the ear buds. _“Girls. Behave.”_

“Spoilsport,” Lucy murmured the same time Kiera muttered a ‘she started it’.

But the grifter winked at the thief and turned her attention back out the window.

They pulled up behind a short line of cars, people in front getting out to an array of flashing lights and shouted questions. Not a lot of cameras. But enough.

Lucy stopped the Cadillac at the bottom of the entrance and bounced out of her seat, walking around to Kiera’s door and opening it. The blonde woman took her offered hand with a small grin, black clutch cradled under one arm, and leaned forward so it just looked as if she was catching her balance to anyone else looking. “See you inside,” she whispered, and then stood fully, brighter smile on her lips as she caught the light of the cameras.

The lenses weren’t fully focused on her—not really—but that was perfect.

Walking back around to the wheel, Lucy climbed back in the car, checked that the black duffle was still in the passenger side, and pulled away from the curb.

“Good luck,” she said, not bothering to hide the words under her breath.

Kiera didn’t answer but, when Lucy looked back in the mirrors, the other woman’s smile was more honest.

oOo

The art museum was a mix of brick, high ceilings, Grecian marble, and angled glass that would have captured the sun in the day and sent the light spiralling down to illuminate the various sculptures that lined the walls. At night it was lit by soft, amber lights rather than harsher florescent.

It made stone look more like skin. As if every being around her would come to life in another moment, finishing the movement they were trapped in.

Pausing at a man—a faun—trying to climb up a tree, his progress stinted by three playful children, Kiera folded her hands in front of her and simply admired.

_“Kiera, GPS has you in the hall of sculptures, is everything alright?”_

“Yes,” Kiera said, keeping her voice quiet so it didn’t echo off the walls, “I am just taking a moment to—” she paused with the word _enjoy the exhibit_ on the tip of her tongue, “figure out the finer points.” She brushed her fingers across the stand and heard Cat say something else, but her attention was split between the statue and the man that had stepped up beside her.

“It’s an inspiring piece of work,” he said.

Kiera nodded. “Bernini’s work always is,” she had adjusted the muscles in her throat, changed the way her tongue moved, and recreated her voice to something breathy and American.

There was a quiet hiss over the ear piece, something that sounded suspiciously like _‘ **how** the—’_.

“Bernini?” the man turned his torso partially towards her and the grifter glanced at him before turning her attention back to the sculpture.

Greying hair, white skin, square jaw. He looked like every other white man at the gala except she recognized his face.

John Scorval. Mayor of National City.

He was one of the beneficiaries of Repli-Tech industries many donations into politics.

“Yeah,” Kiera nodded towards the stone, “it’s called _Bacchanal: A Faun Teased by Children_ , though it’s credited under him and his father, Pietro Bernini. He made it when he was eighteen years old.”

“Remarkable,” Scorval said, though his attention was only half on the sculpture. His gaze moved down her neck and the path created by the black necklace to the expanse of skin revealed by her asymmetrical off shoulder dress. His eyes almost went lower before he seemed to stop himself and turned his gaze back up to her face. “Do you have an interest in art miss...?”

Kiera finally turned herself towards him, smiling sheepishly. “Oh, I’m so sorry! Sometimes I just get caught up with my musings,” she offered her hand. “Doctor Veronica Silva.”

“Doctor?” his eyebrows rose.

“Not medical,” she admitted, “I have a doctorate in genetic engineering.” Kiera turned back to the faun and children. “With all the science, sometimes it’s better to enjoy the more...” pausing, she tilted her head to the side, a secretive glimmer in her eyes, “ _artistic_ side of life.”

An announcement called overhead and the blonde’s attention was ripped from a heist back to the original plan and the man by her side.

Scorval smiled at her and offered an arm towards her. “Well, it would be a shame to leave you all by your lonesome at a party like this; I know a couple of people who might be a bit better company than faces carved out of stone.”

 _I doubt that_. Kiera hooked her arm through his. “Would you?” She sighed and offered another small, shy smile, “I don’t know how to thank you.”

From where his eyes moved, he could think of a couple of ways. Kiera looked away to admire the way the light fell across the sculptures one more time.

oOo

Lucy had parked the Cadillac in one of the nearby parking garages, ducked into the back seat, and stripped off the button up, the suspenders, and her hat to tug on a white shirt, black apron, and black bow tie. She dug through the duffle bag, pulling out the phone Lena had handed over while they had been waiting for Kiera to finish doing her makeup.

“Okay,” she said, slipping out the back seat , locking the car, and then sprinting towards the EXIT sign. “Explain it.”

 _“It’s an RFID,”_ Lena said, _“But you have to make sure to get his company ID information so you’ll probably have to pick his pocket_ —”

“Easy,” Lucy said, jumping down the stairs four to five at a time until she was at the ground level and heading at a light jog towards the catering vans at the Museum’s back entrance.

Cat cut off whatever else Lena was going to say, voice sharp. _“Return everything else,”_ she said, _“we don’t want him getting suspicious.”_

Rolling her eyes, Lucy sighed. “I know,” she muttered and almost slammed into a woman in a dark skirt and purple blouse.

“Oh, thank _God_ ,” she said, grabbing the thief and shoving her towards the doors. “I’m so glad you managed to get here in time, your mother said that you would be coming as soon as possible—”

“My—” Lucy swallowed the question that was about to escape her mouth and just nodded and smiled. “Yes, yeah, what do you need me to do?” She was pushed back towards the door.

“Drinks,” the woman ordered. “Casey couldn’t make it so you’re on drinks—I’m sorry, what’s your name again?”

“Uh—”

 _“Eliza Dune_.”

“Eliza.”

“I’ll make sure you get paid overtime Eliza, thank you so much—especially for showing up so quickly!”

In a whirlwind of motion, Lucy was inside the building, heading towards the group of caterers. “ _What_?” she hissed, low enough so no one else could hear her over the sound of dishes food and running feet.

Lena chuckled, _“Looks like a couple of the original caterers couldn’t make it due to various emergencies,”_ she clucked her tongue. _“How unfortunate.”_

How unfortunate indeed.

Lucy grabbed a drink tray and carefully loaded it with champagne glasses before ducking through the door. Tables were spread out underneath soft, blue lights. People were already sitting down, talking with each other in groups of eight with even more filling in. A stage was set up at the front of the room with projection screens framing the back and a podium at the front.

Walking around, carefully dodging moving bodies, Lucy smiled and nodded at people who took glasses from her even as she tracked down Rex Rogan sitting down at one of the tables. She was hovering, nodding pleasantly to a couple who squeezed past to get to their own seats, and found the bulge in his jacket pocket that was his wallet.

Interior pocket. Upper chest.

Lucy clicked her tongue and looked up as someone passed, almost jerking when she realized it was Kiera on the arm of the Mayor.

“You work fast,” she murmured.

Kiera smiled at Rogan as he rose from his seat, arm lifting to shake her hand. Someone was pushing out their own chair behind the grifter and, in a second of thought, Lucy moved forward and was nudged back into the blonde which knocked her, in turn, into the CEO.

“Oh!” Lucy regained her balance, keeping the tray of drinks carefully composed so nothing spilled. “I’m so sorry, ma’am, are you alright?”

Having smacked straight into Rogan’s chest, Kiera was just managing to get back to her feet and smiled at the thief. “No, no, that’s quite alright—there’s so many people about it’s amazing how nobody manages to run into each other more often.”

Lucy took the black, leather wallet Kiera was holding between two fingers at her hip and slid it into her apron pocket. “If you’re sure, ma’am—”

“I am, I am, thank you,” and Kiera turned back to Rogan, apologizing with a faint pink blush across her cheeks for running into him. Lucy left her to it, placing her last glass of champagne next to a man already working on his third and headed back towards the catering stations.

She paused in an alcove, holding the tray under one arm and pulling out Rogan’s wallet. “Two hundred in cash,” Lucy murmured, flipping through the bills, “four credit cards—aw, he has a picture of his wife. That’s cute.”

 _“Focus, Lucy,”_ Cat said.

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, going through the cards until she found the white badge for Repli-Tech. She placed the wallet between her teeth, pulling out Lena’s phone and placing it and the card back to back. Looking up, she double checked no one was coming a second time.

There was clicking of a keyboard and, then— _“Okay, I got it_. _”_

Lucy put the phone back in her pocket and slid the card—face down, just as she had pulled it out—back into the wallet.

oOo

“Doctor Silva,” Rogan had his hands folded in his lap, dark eyes watching her as the tables around them filled up, “you mentioned you’re in genetic engineering?”

“Yes,” Kiera offered him a small smile, taking a sip from the wine glass—filled with dark grape juice—Lucy had dropped off for her during the thief’s second rounds through the room. “I’ve always had an interest in modifying DNA in plants and animals—there’s so much good that could be done with GMOs and imagine the breakthroughs we could have with eradicating genetic diseases—”

Rogan leaned back in his chair, watching her with dark eyes. “Human genetics?”

“Well, start off small, of course, with genetic diseases in animals and then work your way up,” Kiera leaned forward, her eyes shining, watching and catching every subtle movement of his face. “There’re so many options once you get to that point.”

“Of course,” Rogan nodded, taking a glass of wine from a waitress, “there’s a bit of difficulty with the law making it more difficult for someone to use transgenesis or cisgenesis.”

His gaze was measuring.

 _“Okay, Kiera, he’s testing you,”_ Lena’s voice came through the comm., swift and breathy in her panic. _“Transgenesis means—”_

“Well,” the grifter laughed softly, “I don’t think a lot of people would be agreeable to _transgenesis_ ,” adding emphasis effectively silenced the voice in her ear. “It would get too—” she paused, hummed, and swirled the grape juice around in her glass. “ _Controlling_. You’d have to give people choice—bring their genetics together, use DNA sequencing to determine what their child would look like, what characteristics they would have. Choosing who people could have a baby with would get a bit...”

 _Nazi_ , she wanted to say, but left the word hanging between them without form.

Rogan’s eyebrows rose, impressed. “You’ve thought about it.”

_I’ve lived through it._

“On occasion,” Kiera said, taking a sip of her juice.

Rogan’s smile was almost pleased. The lights dimmed around them, the presentations and speeches about to start. He leaned over as everyone’s attention turned to the front.

“Perhaps,” he murmured, “we could speak more about this after the gala? Over drinks?”

Kiera nodded and looked out at him from the corner of her eye, grinning. “I would be delighted,” she said.

oOo

Cat looked up at the door six hours after the gala ended. Kiera had her heels in one hand—placing them on the table with a thud—and walked barefoot over the carpet while Lucy, back in her hat and suspenders, sauntered in. She tossed the phone to Lena and slid into a chair besides the grifter, grinning wildly.

“So,” the thief started, “when were you going to drop that fake accent of yours?”

“Fake?” Kiera reached back to undo the clasp of her choker, “who says the American accent is not the fake?”

Lucy leaned over her chair and brought her face close to Kiera’s, her eyes narrowed in a squint. “Where _are_ you from?”

Placing a finger to Lucy’s forehead, Kiera pushed the other woman out of her personal space. “Nonnya,” the grifter said, dropping her accent to something sharp and Boston.

Frowning, Lucy tilted her head to the side. “Nonnya?”

“None-ya-business,” Lena finished not looking up from her keyboard.

Cat sighed and rolled her eyes, glass of whiskey half finished in her hand. _Children_. “So, _Kiera_ , what did you get from Rogan?”

“Besides the fact that he abuses the fact that he can afford a lot of alcohol?” Kiera muttered, putting the wiring out of her hair and placing it on the table. At Cat’s sharp glance, the younger woman sighed and waved her hand in some awkward ‘don’t look at me’ type of motion. “ _Fine_ ; he is obsessed with his wife—who is a pretty impressive scientist, even works for his company down in the labs—and thinks people should mate (‘Did you just say _mate_?’ Lucy muttered) based upon their genetics. Which is _horribly_ white supremacist—”

Cat rubbed at her forehead. “Okay,” she cut off Kiera, “but did you get anything _important_.”

The grifter huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. “Anything _important_?” She scowled and leaned back, sinking lower in her seat. “And what is it that you deem to be _important_ , Miss Grant?”

“Something we can _use_ —”

“What did you believe I was saying?” Kiera scowled, “all information is important; it is _you_ that has to decide how to use it.”

Cat tapped her glass against the table with a rapping insistence as she stared, unblinking, at Kiera who matched her gaze with hooded eyes and a tilted head. Lena looked up from her typing, gaze flickering between the two as Lucy leaned over the table with a grin like she was watching a comedic—but serious—television show about a group of criminals slowly becoming a family.

“You’re right,” Cat admitted, “I’d forgotten.” How much it involved using misdirection and careful words to get all information and use that. How much journalists and con artists had in common.

“Aye,” Lucy leaned back into her chair, “that’s the spirit.”

Kiera hummed and her stance relaxed. “If I may continue, then?”

There was a murmur of agreement.

“Rogan _does_ have a degree in genetic engineering, but he has more of an obsession with what you could call ‘beautiful science’.” Kiera rubbed her forehead, “He wants to use genetics to make things more beautiful—plants, animals, people. GMOs only for aesthetics. There is no care whether or not his company actually helps people.” Her eyes shifted over to Cat before turning back up to the monitors. “Does not care if his company helps, just that he gets his beauty and his money.”

Lucy’s nose wrinkled. “Sick,” she muttered.

“So we get his attention with something beautiful,” Lena said. “Like, what, art? Animals? What does he like?”

Cat’s gaze turned to Kiera who was carefully removing her bracelets. “People,” she said. “He likes beautiful people.”

Kiera looked up.

“Can you get him to give you a tour of his labs?”

The grifter smiled. “I can make him run around his own office naked if it pleased me.”

Lena grimaced. “Don’t,” she started and shuddered. “Don’t do that.”

“But I do need is your permission to do something... uhh...” Kiera turned to the woman next to her.

Lucy batted her eyelashes. “ _Eccentric_.”

Cat groaned and fell back in her seat. Letting those two meet might have been the biggest mistake of Maxwell Lord’s career.

“Fine,” she grumbled.

Lucy and Kiera glanced at each other, grinned, and bolted for the bathroom.

oOo

Cat woke up to the smell of milk, flour, and hundreds of newspapers. She was sprawled across an inflatable mattress and groaned, rolling over and rubbing her eyes. Lena was walking back and forth between the conference room with all her computer gear and a different one that had all the doors open and multiple fans blowing air in and out.

“What—”

“Coffee,” Lena said, pushing a cup that was still warm into Cat’s hand after pulling the other woman up to her feet.

“Morning!” Kiera called from the second conference room. There was a wooden board on the table, some wire already hot glued to the surface. Lucy was at her side, dipping strips of newspaper into a bowl of... something. A bag full of spray paint cans—grey, white, and beige—sat by the door.

Cat took a sip of her coffee and grimaced at the straight bitterness that streamed over her tongue. “What’re you doing?”

“Just a little side project,” Lucy murmured, lining up one strip along the wood.

“I texted Rogan,” Kiera was twisting the wire, standing on the table with bare feet and wearing an old paint stained t-shirt and sweatpants. “He agreed to meet with me in—” she pulled out her phone, “four hours for lunch.”

Cat lifted her eyebrows, impressed. “A date? _Already_?”

Lucy glanced up with a smirk, “he agreed pretty quickly. I think someone has a crush.”

“Mercy me,” Kiera said, her accent turning classical London actor, “how ever will I cope?”

Taking another sip of the coffee, Cat looked over the makeshift work space. “I don’t want to know, do I?”

Lena squeezed past her, a pile of papers in her hands that she dropped on the table next to Lucy. “No,” she said, “probably not.”

The next time Cat entered the office with a brand new bottle of bourbon, the second conference room was closed off, blinds down and closed, doors shut. She just shook her head and headed to her normal seat, freshly showered and with a change of clothes.

“Alright,” she said, picking up an earpiece. “Where are we?”

Lena leaned back. “Kiera’s on her lunch date. Lucy is... doing Lucy things.”

 _“I’m right next door,”_ the thief hissed, her voice the only one coming through the speakers.

“Like I said; Lucy things.”

Cat watched the security footage of the restaurant, Kiera dressed up in a black, long sleeved shirt with an asymmetrical bottom highlighted by a thick grey stripe framed by other black and white ones. A pair of snow bleached pants blended in with the table cloth and, just under the edge, Cat could make out heeled, knee high black boots.

“Nice outfit,” she murmured and tore her attention away from the screen when Lena popped open a can beside her. One of those tall AriZona Green Teas. “ _Really_?”

“I don’t comment on your drinking habits,” the hacker nodded at the glass of bourbon, “so you stay away mine.”

Cat grunted. “That’s fair,” she murmured. “How’s the lunch going?”

“I don’t really want to hear the awkward flirting,” Lena said with a grimace. “Kiera got him to agree to giving her a tour of his labs tomorrow because she’s... otherwise occupied this evening.”

“With _what_?”

Lena took a long, loud slurp of her tea.

oOo

With no plans in the evening, and with the con on temporary hold, Cat decided that going out to eat would possibly be a bit more beneficial for her than sitting around in a dark office with just Lena for company. Lucy had gone out to join Kiera which meant being alone with the hacker.

It wasn’t that Lena was bad in a sense, but she was different. Tap tap tapping on her computer, perfectly fine with the silence.

That was why, when she came back after the sun had set, Cat was surprised to see the comms online and Lena leaning over her keyboard, speaking quickly. Three AriZona Green Teas sat at her elbow with another in her hand but she shut up pretty quickly when she saw the older woman.

“What’s going on?” Cat crossed her arms over her chest, turning to the monitor just as Lena closed all the windows except for the comms.

There was a grunt over the speakers and a hushed _‘stop squirming’_.

“Lucy?” Cat frowned and saw the third comm activated. “ _Kiera_?”

Lena muted the audio. “You don’t wanna know,” she said.

“What are you _doing_?”

The hacker took a long sip of her tea, draining the can, and slapped it down next to the others. She looked pained. “ _You don’t wanna know_.”

Three international criminals brought together to do justice. Cat sighed and rubbed at her forehead.

 “Whatever it is,” she called, making sure that her voice could be heard clearly even as she turned around to leave the conference room, “I don’t want to be a part of it. _Got it_?”

Lena saluted.

Cat closed the door behind her and looked at the half filled bourbon longingly.

oOo

 _“Cat will be back in an hour,”_ Lena said absently over the comms. She had sent their boss out to pick up coffee, AriZona tea, and some more newspapers. _“I’m setting up Lucy’s credentials—she’s going by Anna Croy; art expert and authenticator.”_

Kiera sat behind the wheel of a dark blue Jeep Wrangler Sahara because it was probably the cheapest and least eye-grabbing car any of them owned. There was mud up and down the wheels and doors—not faked, for once. They were set up in front of a building that was being renovated from an art gallery to apartments and caught it on a day where the construction hadn’t begun just yet.

One picked locked, a couple of paintings, and _wallah_.

Legitimate business.

 “We just have to get Rogan to buy it,” Kiera murmured, sitting up when she saw a dark Lexus pull up. “He’s here.”

_“Okay everything—ugh, this thing is heavy—everything’s in place. Lena?”_

_“You’re set.”_

Kiera slid out of her Jeep, smoothed her hands over the thick, grey wool of her sweater dress, and straightened the black leather belt at her waist. “Mr. Rogan!” She called, waving at the CEO. “Thank you so much for helping me out today—it won’t take more than a couple of minutes, I _promise_.”

“No problem at all, my dear,” his eyes caught on the pale skin peeking out beneath the hem of the dress and the top of her boots as he offered his arm. “You said that you had been looking at this statue for a while; it’s only fair that we get to know each other’s interests if you’ll be applying for the position in the lab.”

“Why, Mr. Rogan, have I been going through the interview process this whole time?” Kiera patted his shoulder and led the way up to the glass doors.

Lucy waited for them on the inside, wearing a teal blouse and black pair of pants that made her skin look darker and her eyes brighter. She had a folder in one hand that she placed down on the empty secretary desk. “Victoria! It’s so good to see you!”

Kiera detached herself from Rogan and swooped forward, pulling the thief into a tight hug. “It’s been too long, Anna!” Glancing back, she saw the CEO already distracted by the artwork on the walls and kept up the ‘catching up talk’. Giggling kept the man at an arm’s distance even as Lucy led them deeper into the gallery.

The back was a more open space, lights pointed down and towards the centre to highlight the statue.

Bernini’s _Bacchanal_ , sitting tall and proud.

“Anna!” Kiera stepped forward and circled the statue, touched the marble, and looked over at the thief with a pleased smile. “It’s beautiful! Where ever did you find it?”

“It’s only a copy of the original,” Lucy joined the grifter, “someone had been making forgeries and decided to sell them legitimately—we managed to get our hands on one.”

Kiera turned back to Rogan, her smile bright. “Isn’t it magnificent, Mr. Rogan?”

He coughed. “Uh, yes. Yes—I didn’t know you had an interest in art, Dr. Silva.”

“Don’t tell anyone,” she said in a stage whisper, “but one of the reasons why I went to the gala was because it was being held at the art museum.”

Rogan nodded, a smile playing about his lips. “I won’t tell anyone,” he promised and took a step towards Kiera, wrapping an arm around her waist.

Turning her attention back to Lucy, Kiera hummed as if debating something. “How much will you be selling it for?”

“A copy like this? Five hundred thousand.” Lucy laughed.

Kiera whistled. “Way above our pay grades,” she said with a happy little laugh. She leaned in, just slightly, to the CEO next to her, making sure he was carefully aware of her heat and weight.

Rogan froze at the motion and she heard his heart thump heavily in his chest.

“Thank you for letting me see it, though!”

Lucy nodded, smiling softly. “Anything for you, sweetie.”

Turning about, Kiera moved to tug Rogan back out to the entrance of the gallery, but he held strong. “Mr. Rogan?”

“Five hundred thousand?” He turned to Lucy, “How much do the real ones go for?”

The thief shrugged, “In the millions,” she said honestly. “Bernini’s _Bust of Pope Paul V_ was sold for thirty-three million back in 2015.”

Rogan glanced between the statue and Kiera—who kept her features pleasantly bemused. “Do you want it?” He asked the grifter.

“Bernini is one of my favourite artists,” she said, honesty bleeding through her stance, her voice, her eyes. Kiera turned her attention back to the sculpture and took a step towards it, bringing her body back close to Rogan’s, their hips almost touching. “Even if it’s just a copy but... five hundred thousand is more than I can afford right now.” She turned her gaze up, meeting Rogan’s eyes and smiled sadly.

 _“God,”_ Lena muttered, _“you’re terrifying.”_

Lucy caught herself before she nodded; watching the way the grifter touched Rogan gently on the arm and kept her voice carefully soft and sad.

“I’ll buy it for you,” Rogan offered.

Kiera blinked, “What? Mr. Rogan—”

“Rex,” he said, “please, call me Rex.”

“ _Rex_ ,” Kiera urged, “You don’t have to buy it—five hundred _thousand_ —”

The CEO waved his hand. “Pocket change for me,” he said. “Besides; think of it as an _investment_.”

Kiera looked back at _Bacchanal_. “If you’re sure,” she said slowly. “I just—it’s a _lot_ of money.”

“A pretty woman deserves pretty things, don’t you think?” Rogan patted Kiera on the butt and turned to Lucy.

He missed the small flash of fire that flew through the grifter’s eyes. “Miss, uh—”

Lucy swooped in to take his attention completely away from Kiera. “Anna,” she said, offering her hand. “Anna Croy.”

“Miss Croy,” Rogan said with a smile, “I think I would like to buy that statue off your hands.”

Keeping her grin carefully at delighted instead of manic; Lucy led them both to the front where she could pull the paperwork out of her folder. “I just need you to fill out some information so we can ship it to you.”

“Of course,” Nodding, Rogan took the papers, flipped through them, and handed the address form to Kiera.

oOo

“They’re still at the restaurant,” Lena told Cat as she walked through the conference room doors, watching as Kiera carefully stalled out the meal, bringing Rogan into various long conversations about science, art, and politics. It was all about agreement—to make the man feel special even if none of them agreed with his views.

“How long have they been there?” the older woman put down the bag of AriZona tea next to Lena and wrinkled her nose in disgust as the hacker grabbed for a can.

Lena hummed. “An hour at the least.”

Which had given Lucy enough time to pack up the gallery, call a same day delivery company, and sent the statue and other art pieces on their way.

Cat sighed and sat down in her chair. “If you wanted to get me out of the way for whatever the three of you were doing this morning,” she said, “all you had to do was ask.”

“Yeah,” Lena said, “but then you would have been even more suspicious and curious and probably would have been tempted to stay.”

The older woman scowled, opened her mouth as if to ask a question, and then stopped herself.

On the screens, Lena watched as Kiera stood and took Rogan’s arm back in hers.

“They’re leaving the restaurant,” the hacker said, pressing the button on her keyboard to activate the microphone, “Lucy, are you ready?”

_“Yeah, just got here—oh, I see them.”_

Cat’s eyes flickered. “This side project,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “It won’t interfere with the job?”

“No,” Lena said, switching the cameras so they could see Kiera getting into her Jeep, Rogan into his Lexus and, as both pulled away, Lucy’s Cadillac following close behind. “Not in the least.”

Nodding, Cat turned her attention back to the monitors. “Alright. The home stretch.”

oOo

Repli-Tech was a massive, forty or some story building with tall glass windows that seemed to shine in the daylight. Kiera stepped out of her Jeep and handed the keys dutifully over to the valet after Rogan’s insistence and followed him into the building. It was offices and labs—which they knew from Lucy and Lena’s recon earlier that week—with people walking around in business clothes and lab coats.

Black clad security guards stood around, not quite blending into the background.

“It’s like walking into the Pentagon,” Kiera murmured.

 _“Worse,”_ Lucy admitted and the grifter saw her walk through the front doors, only a couple minutes behind. The thief had changed her clothes from the teal blouse to a dark purple button up covered mostly by a white lab coat, a set of glasses, and her brown hair was tied back into a low pony tail. _“I’ve snuck into the Pentagon.”_

 _“I wanna hear that story when we’re done,”_ Lena said.

Cat sighed. _“I don’t,”_ she grumbled. _“Lucy, you’re going to have to sneak past security, probably when they’re occupied—”_

A couple of car alarms went off in the street and the attention in the lobby turned, for the briefest moment, outside.

 _“No problem, boss lady,”_ Lucy sounded amused and, when Kiera glanced back, the thief was already through the check points, getting into an elevator. _“The human equation is always predictable.”_

Rogan shook his head and motioned Kiera through the metal detectors. “Shall we head down?”

“Please,” Kiera nodded and accepted a temporary badge from a smiling young man.

oOo

Lucy lifted a badge at the lab floor, taking it from a middle aged woman—whose face tickled some memory—getting into the elevator and hooked it to the pocket of her coat. “I’m in,” she said under her breath.

 _“Alright,”_ Lena tapped out something on her keyboard. _“The server room is in the main lab—the second door on your right.”_

The second elevator dinged as it arrived and Lucy flashed the badge over the pad. It unlocked with a click and she pushed it open just as Rogan and Kiera stepped out and onto the floor. The room she entered was white with table lined up with microscopes and equipment she’d never seen before. Sinks were here and there, tubes and faucets and just so much _stuff._

_“Just remember—you don’t have to actually type anything. Just plug the drive in and wait.”_

Lucy dodged around a scientist and worked her way over to the back, scanning the doors and stopping to stand by an array of equipment. “I don’t know which one the server room is,” she hissed.

_“The one in the middle on the back wall. It says—”_

“Authorized personnel only,” Lucy said, her eyes on the red sign. “I see it.” She grabbed a stand of clean test tubes and headed over to it, carefully dodging around groups of scientists that moved and chattered.

Once she was close enough, the thief placed the equipment down on another table, next to a man.

“Oh, hey, wait—” he called after her, “I don’t— _never mind_.”

 _“You have to wait a minute after Rogan and Kiera come through the door,”_ Lena said, the words clumped together, Irish heavy on her tongue. _“Starting in five... four... three... two—”_

Lucy saw Kiera walk through the door first and started the count, grabbing a clip board with some blank paper and pretending to jot things down. Rogan’s cloned badge was hot in her pocket and she slid it up and out, holding it between two fingers—

A minute passed, Kiera stalling Rogan, keeping his attention on her questions as she motioned to an experiment.

Lucy passed by the server room, flashed the badge over the scanner, and slipped through the door like a phantom. Green lights blinked at her, towering computers whirling away on every side.

“I’m in,” she said.

oOo

Kiera had seen Lucy slip through the server room door and kept Rogan’s attention on the experiment in front of them. With their boss in the room, the other scientists kept their noses down, pretending to be busy, and watched the grifter and CEO out of the corner of their eye.

“Do you mind?” Kiera motioned to a printed report.

“No, no,” Rogan shook his head. “Please, take a look.”

oOo

Lucy watched the files being copied and the green loading bar move from 80% to 85%. It inched, closer and closer to the end.

Red lights turned on and a wailing alarm tore through the quiet server room.

oOo

“What—” Kiera looked up as the alarms blared, the papers almost dropping out of her hands. “Rex!” She called and the CEO turned around as security burst through the front of the lab doors. “What’s going on?!”

“Sir,” one of the officers—the head of security, based on his uniform—motioned towards the CEO, the rest spanning through the lab, checking the other scientists, matching badges to faces. “Have you entered the server room while you were in here?”

Rogan sputtered. “What? No—of course not, John—”

The officer nodded to a couple of other men and Kiera watched as they headed towards the locked door and, beyond that, Lucy.

 _“They’re coming,”_ Lena managed, her fingers tapping rapidly on the keyboard. _“Lucy, get out of there—”_

Kiera let Rex push her behind him and watched the officers burst into the server room. They spanned out along the towers, guns held up in front of their faces.

“Sir,” one of the men said, walking out with Lucy’s lab coat and holding up the badge. It had the face of a middle aged woman, blonde, with a small smile.

Underneath the picture, in very clear letters, it said JENNIFER ROGAN.

“Someone managed to sneak into the labs using your wife’s badge. We were lucky that she noticed before they got too far.”

“But they got into the _server_ room?!” Rogan spat. “Find them!”

 _“Oops,”_ Lucy murmured. _“I thought it was because she just looked like Kiera.”_

_“Like—what do you mean ‘like Kiera’?!”_

Lucy grumbled something under her breath. _“She just looked familiar—but I thought it was cause she looked like Kiera, not cause her face was in Rogan’s stupid wallet!”_

Cat hissed out a curse.

Lena sighed through her whole body. The sound of it was heavy in Kiera’s ear. _“Did you get the drives, at least?”_

_“Yep, but the building is going into lock down—”_

Rogan approached Kiera, a small, apologetic smile on his face. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “We can continue in my office if you would like, until the lock down is released at least.”

“Of course,” Kiera nodded and held up the lab report. “Do you mind if I...?”

He shook his head, “no, no, of course not.”

oOo

Lucy, hiding in the ceiling tiles, her weight distributed across thin, steel beams, listened as the officers moved through the server room beneath her.  Dust was already sticking to her pants and shirt, clinging to her hands and hair.

There was no way to go out the front—not looking as if she cleaned out an air duct with her own body.

With slow movements, Lucy worked her way through the dark

oOo

Rogan’s office was full of furniture made of black leather, dark cherry wood, and silver furnishing. There was a single television on the back wall playing one of the news stations and placed on mute. A reporter stood in front of the Art museum, one of the curators beside her.

As Rogan stepped outside, making calls and talking with security officers, Kiera sat in the room, flipping through the lab report.

“This is illegal,” she said, keeping her voice carefully quiet even as her accent made the words snap around her tongue. “Rogan is taking steps in human and animal gene splicing.”

There was silence and then Lena spoke up. _“I thought DNA splicing was legal?”_

Kiera glanced out of the corner of her eye, making sure Rogan was still outside the door. “Not like this,” she murmured. “He is putting human DNA into mouse embryos to see how the animal will grow.”

Nobody said anything and Kiera frowned as she continued through the report. “He’s taking steps to human and animal _mutations_.”

 _“What do you mean,”_ Lena said slowly, _“‘mutations’?”_

“I am talking about creating humans with animal abilities,” Kiera hissed. “People grown in a lab with the senses of a dog or the healing ability of a zebra fish but more... _extreme_.”

Cat cut in, then. _“What do you mean?”_

“I am talking about _weapons_ ,” Kiera ducked down into the couch. “What would the military do to buy a wolf pack that had the part of the ape brain that could understand human speech and take orders? What about a man who had the hardened skin of an armadillo?”

Silence settled through the comms.

“I need to look at those drives,” Kiera murmured and turned to smile at Rogan as he came back through the door.

Lucy was breathing heavily and grunted as if she was climbing something. _“Get Lord his stolen projects back. Get out. That was the plan.”_

 “Sorry,” Rogan smiled apologetically, “today just looks like a mess. I have to head down to sign for some package that was just delivered, do you mind...?”

“No, not at all,” Kiera shook her head and watched him head out of his office. She gave him a head start before grabbing her things, stuffing the lab report into her purse, and walking out into the hallway. “I’m sorry,” smiling sheepishly, she got one of the officer’s attention, “do you mind telling me where the bathroom is?”

oOo

Lucy dropped into the elevator as Kiera pressed the button for the first floor. “Hey stranger,” the thief grinned, covered from head to toe in dust. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Please,” Kiera pulled out a spare shirt and skirt from her purse, “do _not_ touch me.”

 _“I’m getting the elevator to drop you directly to the ground floor,”_ Lena muttered , _“so you have about twenty seconds to change.”_

Already stripped, Lucy pulled the blouse on and hopped into the skirt. Kiera slapped a hat over the thief’s hair and used some hand sanitizer and a handful of paper tissues to wipe what she could off the other woman’s face and arms. Once Lucy could take over it herself, the grifter set about undoing her belt and pulling the sweater dress over her head.

By the time the doors opened, two women walked out; one in beige trousers and a floral button up, the other in a pink blouse and white skirt.

 _“Careful,_ ” Cat urged, _“There’s police everywhere.”_

Flashing red and blue lights lit up the lobby from the outside windows, officers talking loudly, pushing security back and away from a large, wooden box in the middle of the floor.

Rogan was there too, shouting to be heard above the noise as a woman wearing a blue National City Police Department wind breaker stood next to him, motioning for a crowbar.

“Oh,” Lucy grinned. “They’re not here for _us_.”

The side of the box was opened and, at once, the walls fell.

Bernini’s _Bacchanal_ sat in the middle of Repli-Tech’s lobby.

Lucy and Kiera paused by the elevators, hovering on the edge of the hallway that would lead them out to the employee’s exit and, beyond, the garage. They watched as the female officer grabbed a piece of paper that was wrapped around the faun’s penis by a rubber band and waved it in Rogan’s face. He snatched it and read over the contents with wide eyes.

Hooking their arms together, Lucy and Kiera walked out the employee entrance and didn’t even bother hiding their smiles.

oOo

“You stole the statue,” Cat greeted them with a hiss as they walked through the office doors, “replaced it with a fake, got him to buy the real one, called the police, and then _shipped_ it to his office,” she watched the blonde woman, her eyes narrowed. “ _Why_?”

Kiera shrugged, her clear eyes burning like a dying star. “No one should be allowed to put a price on life,” she said. “What do you Americans believe? That everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?” She stood up straighter, crossing her arms over her chest. “He was a part of a process that took many children’s lives.”

“And it definitely made us happy watching him _burn_ ,” Lucy added, teeth bared in a smile.

Cat looked as if she was going to say something, paused, and then started again. “You made a fake in a _day_.”

“Ehh,” Lena walked out of the hallway and shrugged.

“We’re _thieves_ ,” Lucy said, leading the group of women back into the conference room. “It’s what we _do_.”

Lena had already started packing everything up; the monitors taken down from the wall, her cables packed tightly up in various boxes.

Kiera smiled sheepishly. “And we never wanted it to stand up under any scrutiny—the museum figured it out by lunch.”

“Which was the point, I’m guessing.”

The other three women snickered before sobering.

“The police will go through Repli-Tech,” Kiera said, “they’ll find the illegal experiments and Rogan will be locked away for a very long time.”

Lucy handed the flash drive over to Lena. “Lord gets what he paid for,” she sat down heavily in one of the chairs. “And you,” the thief directed her words at Cat, “can wash your hands of all this.”

Turning towards the three women she had worked with over the past week, Cat crossed her arms over her chest. “What’d you do with the money?”

“Well, CURE looked like it could use a donation,” Lucy shrugged. “They might be finding a nice big check in the mail soon enough.”

Cat swallowed around the sudden itchiness in the back of her throat. Her eyes burned and she stood there, unable to say anything.

Her phone rang.

She turned away from the others, grateful. “Cat Grant.”

 _“Good work,”_ Maxwell Lord’s voice was just as grating over the phone as it had been in person. _“The stolen bit of art so the police could search the building—that was a nice touch.”_

“Well,” Cat said, turning back to glance at Kiera, Lucy, and Lena. They were packing up the rest of the equipment, laughing among themselves. “they’re very talented.”

Lord barked out a laugh. _“You can all expect the money in your accounts twenty four hours after I get the information.”_

“I’ll let them know.”

He hung up and Cat slid the phone back in her pocket. “Lord said we’ll get paid after you send him everything that’s on the drive.”

Lena nodded and left Lucy and Kiera to packing up the desktop as she opened her laptop. Cat watched as she uploaded it all to the online cloud Lord had set up—some private business drop box. It took a while and she joined in with the packing until it was all loaded into the back of the hacker’s Buggati. Cleaning up the second conference room took even less time—just taking the slab of wood to the dumpster and moving the fans back into the closet. Air mattresses deflated and everything placed back the way it had been when they arrived, Cat watched the last bit of data be uploaded and Lena delete the information off the flash drive.

“It’s done,” the hacker said.

The sun was bright as they walked outside for the last time, Cat locking up the doors and sliding the key underneath a rock by the entrance for Lord to pick up later.

“This was nice,” Kiera grinned, “we should do it again sometime.”

“Maybe,” Lena said, the words hesitant.

Lucy smiled at Cat. “You make a pretty good Mastermind,” she said.

“There’s a reason why a part of this job was just the three of you,” the older woman drawled. “I’m not really one for stealing.”

Kiera walked over to her Jeep. “That’s okay,” she said, giving Cat a cheeky wink, “thanks for playing, Miss Grant.”

The other two criminals headed to their own cars and Cat was left standing at the entrance of the office building. She looked back through the glass doors to the empty walls and dark space left behind.

She was still standing there long after her Nissan was the only vehicle left in the lot.

oOo

Painful, bright ringing tore through Cat’s dream in the early hours of the morning. She groaned, cracking open one eye and closing it again at the light streaming through the cracks between the blinds. Her tongue felt dry and swollen, stuck to the roof of her mouth.

Grunting, she slapped the empty bottle of bourbon to the floor, grabbed her phone, and stared at the letters swimming in her vision.

“What?” Cat snarled.

 _“I just received an email from our... hacker friend.”_ Lord’s voice was too slimy to be heard at—she glanced over at the hotel alarm clock that told her it was seven in the morning. _“The online payments didn’t go through.”_

Cat rubbed her hand across her forehead. “Okay, what—”

_“I’ve already texted them an address—I’m going to pay all of you in person as an apology. Meet us there in an hour.”_

He hung up again and Cat flopped down on the bed, pressed her hands over her eyes, and let out a long, drawn out, hateful moan.

oOo

Lord’s address was nothing more than some old Lord Industries warehouse. Which made sense. Mostly. Cat fought the urge to bring a second pair of sunglasses and parked just down the street. She walked the rest of the way and found an open door that lead inside.

It was dark, so she lifted the sunglasses and walked slowly through the dim interior. It looked as if the building hadn’t been used in years. Voices came from further in and, too hung over to care about anything other than curling back up in her bed, Cat followed them.

She stumbled upon Lena and Kiera, both of them waving their hands around and arguing in hushed voices.

“Hey!” Cat shouted and the two women jerked apart. “The hell is going on?”

“Lord’s a slimy little—”

Kiera cut Lena off before she could finish. “Lord said the online payments could not go through. He said he is meeting us to pay us.” The grifter had crossed her arms over her chest and was shifting from foot to foot with a frown.

“I’m with Lena,” Lucy said and Cat jumped away, turning to face the thief. “Online payments go through, unless...”

Cat spoke slowly. “But all of us came here anyway because you wanted to get paid.”

They all looked at each other. Pieces of a puzzle snapped together.

Around them, the building groaned.

Four women bolted to the exit. Kiera was the first, easily outpacing the rest, so it was her body that slammed into the door first, almost knocking it off the hinges. She spun around, holding it open for the others as they filed out (screaming “Go go go!”).

The building exploded, glass erupting outwards, and the force knocked Cat, Lucy, and Lena off their feet.

 _This is looking like a spectacularly shitty day_ , Cat thought before she hit the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> i was... inspired. and this is unbeta'd.
> 
> i had originally posted this a week or so ago but then i realized it was shit and made it better and longer. 
> 
> i mean, it's still shit, but better shit. higher quality shit. if you find any mistakes please tell me because i am way too tired to look at this anymore.
> 
> further notes:
> 
> Kara did not land in America, her accent is a mix of Kryptonian and another that might be revealed next chapter. if it's not i'll just tell you. you can probably guess by the last name she's chosen, though.
> 
> the rest was inspired by [this post](http://randomthingsthatilike.com/post/163194634512/was-talking-with-tomas-abe-about-thishave-you)


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